Unabomber AU
by niennah
Summary: A few years into the future, the Trio all lead different lives. (WarrenAndrew, Jonathannot-wife) Part 2 added - In A Cabin In The Woods
1. Just Because You're Paranoid

Title: Just Because You're Paranoid  
Author: Anna  
Rating: PG-13 for language  
Pairing: Warren/Andrew, Jonathan/not-wife  
Disclaimer: Originally they weren't mine, but then I stole them and didn't give them back.  
Feedback: Yes please.   
Notes: Thank you to emony who took a break in her spider solitaire to beta. ^_^  
If season 6 wandered AU some time before Dead Things and then went forward a few years, this is where it might end up.  
  
  
Warren felt bitter. That was a word for it. Or maybe resentful. Yeah, that was good, too. There were probably a few more, but he couldn't be bothered thinking about them any more.   
  
"A garden." He turned to Jonathan. "I never thought a Ferengi like you would end up with a fucking garden, man, outside this cute little wooden house thing you've got going." He turned back and faced the veranda. "Very domestic."   
  
Jonathan sighed. "Thank you," he said, wearily.   
  
Warren eyed him carefully. He could hear Andrew talking to a short child thing in the garden. The kid was dangling from some sort of climbing frame that looked like it was adapted from a nightmarish army training course and painted cheery red to convince stupid kids that it really was fun to climb and fall. Way to train the soldiers of the future. Get them young. Warren never fell for it.   
  
"So how did you do it, huh?" His hands were in his pockets and he slouched over, now, even more than he used to. Sometimes his back hurt. "How did you talk her into actually marrying you?"   
  
"We're not married," said Jonathan. He stood taller now. Straighter. It was like he didn't care how short he really was anymore. "I told you."   
  
"Oh yeah, that's right. You're modern kids." Warren nodded with a smile like plastic.   
  
"Yeah," said Jonathan. He nodded gently towards Andrew. "Just like you."   
  
Warren looked at Andrew, laughing up at the child creature hanging from the bars, its sweater up under its arms and its pants falling off so all you could see was midriff and stupid messy kid-hair with bunched up clothes either end.   
  
"Oh." He said flatly. "Andrew. Whatever." He shrugged and turned away from the disturbing shrieks. He hated noise like that. It made his teeth hurt. "You have flowers."   
  
"Yeah, she likes those," said Jonathan, smiling.   
  
Warren shook his head. "This is what you want? You know you could still, you know, come hang out, right?" He felt earnest now and he hated it. Maybe he meant it. He couldn't tell.   
  
Jonathan tilted his head and infuriated Warren further. Like the stupid kid-screaming wasn't enough to drive him insane.   
  
"In your shack in the woods?" said Jonathan. He was squinting a little in the sunlight. "Thanks, Warren, but I'm doing okay here."   
  
"Andrew keeps it nice." Warren kicked the ground. His pants were baggy, and he suddenly felt like his shirt was too big. Maybe he should eat more. It was just hard to remember to eat sometimes.   
  
"I bet he does," said Jonathan, gently. Warren wanted to strangle him where he stood, but he didn't. Instead he looked around him some more, turning in a circle as he did. The wooden veranda with its flowerboxes, the kitchen window with the pretty blinds. The window into the den revealed a faded Babylon 5 poster on the wall. He knew that poster. It used to hang over Jonathan's bed in the lair. Warren used to catch him gazing lustfully at Ivanova. She was faded now in the daylight, and frayed at the edges.   
  
The garden was small but green and well kept. The grass, as Warren had discovered too late, hid miniature monster trucks scattered there carelessly by the miniature human. Warren hated to see all those tiny springs and rudimentary mechanisms rusting out here in the grass. When he was a kid, he took them to pieces in his room and then rebuilt them with hardly a thought. Now here he was stepping on them with his battered Nikes and crushing them into the well-watered earth.   
  
Jonathan's car was a sleek silver Chrysler, parked beside the house and recently waxed, by the look of it. Warren couldn't understand people who took care of their cars like that. His Toyota truck was dented and scratched from the woods and had hardly any paint left, but he took care of her insides and she purred. She was parked outside now. She probably looked a little shabby in this neighbourhood, but Warren didn't care.   
  
"So what is it you do now?" he said. "I assume you have a job of some kind, fulfilling your function in society like a good little drone."   
  
"You know what I do," replied Jonathan. "I run a chain of homeopathy stores."   
  
Warren shook his head. "Man, that is so fucking gay." He turned and stepped gingerly on the grass, avoiding further encounters with hidden miniature monster trucks, and returned to the veranda. Jonathan followed him.   
  
"I like it," said Jonathan, shrugging. "It's an expanding market. We've got stores in thirteen cities in the States now, and four in Canada. We're looking at Europe within five years."   
  
Warren shook his head and laughed. He adjusted his baseball cap, the same one he'd worn that day years ago, the day they began their feud with the Slayer.   
  
"Look at you," he said derisively. "Mister Corporation. I never thought I'd see the day, Jonathan."   
  
"Warren, I don't need to hear it again, okay?" Jonathan stood beside Warren, leaning against the veranda railings. Wisteria wound its lazy way up trellises below him and sweetened the air. "Every time you come, you say this same junk."   
  
"Yeah, well, I like to forget all this crap between visits." Warren stared straight ahead. The noise from the child thing was still screechy and it pulled at every hair on his skin. He wished Andrew would stop pushing the swing so goddamned high.   
  
"Must be easy, forgetting this in your shack. What are you still doing there?" Jonathan turned to look at him. "If it wasn't for Andrew you'd have died of starvation and hypothermia by now."   
  
Warren laughed edgily, just the sound of air through tight lips. "You know, that's such bullshit. He always says that. He doesn't even live there any more. He only stays, like, maybe a couple times a week or something." Warren looked again at Andrew. "And not at all in the fucking winter, you know, so that's just bullshit. I like it out there."   
  
"He doesn't live there because it's inhuman, Warren." Jonathan shook his head. All these old words. They should have been shiny from use but instead they were dull and lonely and hard. Harder every time.   
  
"It's fine, okay? It's better than this children's book crap you got here. I'd hate this."   
  
"Andrew likes it. Did you know that? He comes over now every week for dinner, at least once. And have you seen his apartment?" Jonathan's eyes were hard, now, hard as the words. Warren didn't like it.   
  
"No," he said. "He comes over to my place. I don't have time to visit his apartment."   
  
"He's been there for two years, Warren."   
  
"Look, just because you got nothing better to do at the weekends than water your petunias doesn't mean the rest of the world lives nine to five, five days a week, okay?" Warren was angry again, but it tasted different. "There's so much to do."   
  
"What? What is it that you're doing?" Jonathan's voice had changed so goddamned much. A few years ago he would have whined that sentence.   
  
"I told you before," he said, angrily. "I don't tell anyone what I'm doing, okay? Not even Andrew."   
  
"I know that, and he's worried about you. Did you know that?" Jonathan put a hand on Warren's arm, but Warren shook it off. "Do you have any idea how worried he is about you?"   
  
Warren sighed. His hands were buried deep in his pockets.   
  
"Sometimes," he began, "sometimes, things are dangerous. And sometimes there might be people who don't want you to do what you're doing, so you have to keep it secret. I don't know who's listening, Jonathan. Anyone could be listening. So I gotta be careful, and not tell anyone, not you, not even Andrew." He was still watching Andrew playing with the ugly kid in the sun. "That way," he said, then stopped. "Look, Jonathan. That way, he's safe. Okay? If he doesn't know anything, he's safe. That's all."   
  
Warren finally turned to look at Jonathan. He felt strange, like he had been watching Andrew in slow motion or soft focus or something. Jonathan didn't say anything for a minute, looking from Warren to Andrew and back again.   
  
"You know you're paranoid, right?" he said eventually.   
  
Warren shrugged. "Just because you're paranoid…" he began, and trailed off, his eyes drifting again, finding another half-hidden truck in the grass. He really disliked that kid.   
  
"Look, Warren," said Jonathan, scratching his head. "Do you want to stay for something to eat? Andrew would probably like to, and we'd like you to stay, too."   
  
Warren laughed.   
  
"Yeah, you know what, Short Round? Somehow I don't see the little not-wife being happy with me hanging around for some Levinson home-cooked. Okay? But thanks anyway."   
  
"Come on, she won't mind. Really."   
  
"You sound like you almost believe that yourself," said Warren.   
  
"What are you going home to? Baked beans and paraffin? Tinned soup and copper? Come on, Warren." Jonathan sighed. "Stay this once."   
  
Warren didn't reply. Andrew was kneeling on the grass now. The child thing had apparently hurt itself, and Andrew was kissing its thumb better.   
  
Warren missed Andrew staying with him as often as he used. It was colder without him. Andrew was good at remembering food and firewood and kerosene for the space heater. Warren was good at keeping the car and the generator going. It was right that way. Maybe that was why he felt so bitter looking around this wooden fairytale house with all its flowers and crap. Andrew made things like this. Andrew was like this in his head.   
  
"I don't know, Jonathan," he said. He said it quietly. His voice surprised even him. "I'm tired, you know? I'm tired."   
  
"I know, Warren." Jonathan put his fingertips on Warren's arm again. Warren found he didn't have the strength to shrug him away. "I know. Stay."   
  
The child's thumb seemed to have healed. Andrew stood up and watched it run away towards some other distraction device, and then turned his head towards Warren in the shade of the veranda. Warren watched him smile.   
  
"Okay," he said. "Okay. If it means that much to you, you know. But I can't stay long, I have to get back."   
  
Jonathan smiled. "Okay. Stay as short as you like. Dinner won't be too long."   
  
"When the little not-wife gets home?"   
  
"Yeah, it'll be ready then."   
  
"I hope she gets back soon. I'm hungry." Warren turned around and pushed open the door into the kitchen. "Where is she anyway?" he said. "The sun's still up. It's a bit early for slaying."   
  
Jonathan smiled and followed Warren into the cool kitchen.   
  
"She'll be home soon," was all he said. "Buffy's never late."   
  
  
  



	2. In A Cabin In The Woods

Title: In a Cabin in the Woods   
Author: Anna  
Rating: PG  
Pairing: Warren/Andrew  
Disclaimer: Not mine.  
Feedback: Yes, please.  
Notes: Thank you to Emony who gave this a read so I'd know I wasn't posting drivel. *g*   
  
  
Warren knew Andrew was coming only when he saw the car lights sweep across the back wall of the cabin, catching in his eyes long enough to make him squint. Lately he had taken to calling before showing up, but not tonight, apparently. Warren started his complex saving routine, which involved various complicated hacks and some unused space on an old archiving computer in the Pentagon. He didn't have to keep it there, but he found it hugely amusing to do so. Plus, this way he never had to hold it on his hard drive for Andrew to come across when he was playing Sims.   
  
The computer whirred and clacked. Warren loved that sound. He heard Andrew's gently padding footsteps on the earth outside the cabin and he turned and waited for the door to open, minimising all his screens.   
  
"Hey, Warren," said Andrew, stepping inside and wiping his feet on a ragged old mat by the door. Andrew had put it there back when he had actually lived here. Warren had never moved it.   
  
"Hey, Andrew." Warren found his voice was cracked. He hadn't used it in a while, maybe.   
  
Andrew left his bags on the wooden table over by the far wall, and immediately turned up the space heater to max.   
  
"I left you more kerosene outside, so you can turn this up. You know I'm not gonna let you run out." Still on his hunkers in front of the flickering little flame, Andrew turned around to Warren. "And remind me to get you a new one of these, too. One that blows out hot air, not like this old slow one."   
  
"I like the flame," said Warren. "It looks warm."   
  
"Yeah, and that's about all," said Andrew, standing up. "Look at you. No wonder you have to wear your coat in this cold."   
  
"Did you come here just to comment on the temperature, or was there something else?"   
  
Andrew ignored him and began to unpack the bags. Tins of soup, beans, tinned fruit. Bread with resealable packaging. Breakfast cereal. Milk, both dairy and non. Bottles of water.   
  
"I fixed the fridge," said Warren.   
  
"Finally," replied Andrew, opening it up and putting things neatly inside. Butter, cheese, jam. Warren looked at the food and wondered if he'd remember to eat it. Maybe he would, if Andrew stayed and reminded him. Or even just visited more often.   
  
"Are you gonna stay long?" he asked. He knew how he sounded. He knew he sounded as if he didn't care either way.   
  
"Yeah, for a while." Andrew didn't turn around. He packed tins carefully into a cupboard under the counter by the cooker.   
  
"Okay," replied Warren. He was glad Andrew could see through him.   
  
Andrew left out one can. Vegetable soup. Warren found his stomach suddenly empty. Andrew took out a pan and began to gently heat the soup over a blue gas flame. He never had to ask if Warren was hungry.   
  
"So what have you been up to?" asked Warren. He still sat sideways on his computer chair, his gloved hands in his lap. Beside him, information streamed via an untraceable, convoluted link to the Pentagon.   
  
"Well, the shop's really busy," said Andrew, glancing back as he stirred the soup. "I was talking to Jonathan about moving to a bigger premises, so I'm looking around for somewhere. I'm hoping to get something with nice, big windows, because we can't do proper window displays where we are now."   
  
Warren let him talk. He found the chatter soothing, and he knew when to say "Really?" and "Yeah" and "Oh, I see." It's not that he didn't listen. He did, always, but he could also think parallel to the noise.   
  
Information still made its binary way to the Pentagon, and he could hear it with his other ear. He could only laugh at what they would think if they found it. Some of it would get him arrested, sure. He had grievances with many aspects of the current government. Or regime, as he liked to refer to it. Dictatorship. Oligarchy. Secret, self-congratulatory society. Any of the above.   
  
But what they would say to his other projects, the ones that required more than smart pipe bombs, the ones that used certain features unknown to anyone who had not grown up in Sunnydale or somewhere similar, that he would love to hear.   
  
Those bombs were designed for other targets entirely.   
  
"So there's this place near the Magic Box that I really want, plus we share clientele. It would make a lot of sense, and Anya totally agrees," continued Andrew. "What do you think?"   
  
"Absolutely," said Warren. "Sounds great."   
  
"Yeah, that's what I think. Jonathan agrees. I hope we get it."   
  
"Yeah, I hope so." Warren nodded. "Hey, is there anything I can, you know, do?" He waved a hand vaguely towards Andrew's food preparation.   
  
"Well, you could put out cutlery on the table, if you like."   
  
"Oh," said Warren. "Okay, sure. I'll do that."   
  
He stood up awkwardly, glancing back at his computer. He hated leaving it unguarded at times like this. Uploading made him vulnerable, however briefly, and he always felt safest staring at the screen, his fingertips hovering over the keys. But Andrew was here, and Andrew was cooking, and Warren was going to set cutlery on the table.   
  
Andrew was cutting bread and setting it out on a plate for them to share. The smell of soup was strong now, and filled the room. Warren's stomach became impatient and growled.   
  
"Hungry?" asked Andrew, smiling.   
  
"A bit," said Warren, smiling too.   
  
"When was the last time you ate?" Andrew was more serious now. Warren hated his serious voice.   
  
"This morning," he said.   
  
"No you didn't."   
  
"I had coffee."   
  
"That's not eating, Warren," said Andrew. "That's drinking caffeine on an empty stomach. When did you last really eat?"   
  
Warren straightened Andrew's spoon and looked at it, frowning. He straightened it again so that it was perfectly parallel with the table edge.   
  
"Warren?"   
  
"Yesterday."   
  
"What did you eat?"   
  
"I don't know, Andrew!" he said, turning now and gesturing too dramatically. "How am I supposed to remember these stupid little things?"   
  
Andrew looked like he was going to shout back, but then he bit his lip and turned back to the cooker.   
  
"Fine," he said. "This is ready. Sit down. I guess you could take your coat off, it's warmer now."   
  
Warren stared for a moment before flinging his coat and gloves across the back of the battered sofa by the wall and pulling a chair noisily away from the table. He sat down, his arms folded against his chest. He straightened out the cutlery again.   
  
Andrew put the bowls and bread on the table and sat. Silence weighed heavy on the table as they began to eat. Warren could feel it on his shoulders.   
  
He hated wasting time with Andrew like this. He looked up and stared at Andrew eating.   
  
"Hey," he said after a minute. Andrew didn't seem to hear. "Hey, Andrew," he said again. "Thank you, okay?" He put down his spoon and touched the back of Andrew's hand with his fingertips. "I really appreciate this."   
  
Andrew stopped eating with an exasperated sigh and pulled his hand away.   
  
"I'm just trying to make sure you're okay, okay?" he said, and Warren could hear something snapping inside him. "I keep coming up here and making you food and sitting in this cold, damp place when I could be in my apartment, which I really like being in, watching tv or reading or having friends round or maybe out taking a walk or anything! And then you act like I'm nagging you when I'm just trying to make sure you eat. What do you want me to do, Warren? You want me to keep visiting, or do you want me to go away and leave you alone here in your shack?"   
  
Warren looked like he was going to speak, but he stopped himself. Andrew waited, his eyes bright and blue and catching the tiny flame from the space heater so that they glowed and twinkled.   
  
"Friends round?" repeated Warren, incredulously. "You have friends round?"   
  
Andrew took some bread and looked away. Warren wanted him to look back so he could watch that tiny flame flicker in the blue of his eyes again.   
  
"Yeah, of course I do, Warren," said Andrew. "I'm not a hermit in the woods. That's you."   
  
"I know. I know that. I'm not a hermit." Warren took some bread too, and dunked it into his soup. "But you never mentioned friends before. I mean, apart from Jonathan."   
  
"Look, it's not like I have parties and loads of people there the whole time, okay? It's just a couple of people I know. Anya comes round now and again because she likes to talk to other shop managers about money. And there's the people at the shop who are my friends. So it's just a few people."   
  
"Hey, it's fine with me if you want people over, you don't have to apologise," said Warren through a mouthful of soggy bread. Andrew reached over and pushed back the sleeve from Warren's hand so the frayed black threads wouldn't dip in his soup. "I just didn't know is all."   
  
Andrew said nothing, and went back to his soup. Warren looked away, his eyes wandering over the wooden wall he faced. It was dirty, he noticed. Dust clung to jutting surfaces of wood and cobwebs hung raggedly from the ceiling beams. The table was illuminated by an old reading lamp with a skeletal arm that threw the ruts in the wooden surface into sharp relief. Shiny patches here and there suggested that once this table had been polished, but those days were over. Beside the table squatted the couch, ragged and torn looking. You could see the foam through a rip in the fabric of one of the arms. His coat lay there like a deflated dead man.   
  
The space heater sat where a fire should have been set. There was a large fireplace with spacious overhanging chimney that harboured nothing but dust. Now and then a bird attempted to roost there, but the chirping drove Warren crazy and he made sure they left with the help of a few lengths of chimney brush he had picked up from the junk yard. There was a low table in front of the couch, rutted and battered from too many things soldered on its surface, too many gadgets invented and put together on its once-shiny wood. Warren regretted none of it. He did wish Andrew didn't have to see it, though.   
  
His bed took up the length of wall between the fireplace and the window. It was spacious. They had bought it together, back when they shared a bed every night and not just a handful of times a month. At least he had bothered to tidy it up a bit this morning. It would hardly seem very inviting otherwise, and he wanted Andrew to stay.   
  
More than anything he wanted Andrew to stay.   
  
He touched the back of Andrew's hand again.   
  
"I'm sorry for getting mad," he said. "You should have friends. That's good that you have friends, people to talk to." Andrew looked up at him. "But you don't talk about me, right?"   
  
"No," said Andrew, shaking his head. "I don't mention you."   
  
"But do you want to?" Warren went back to his bowl, catching the last of his soup in the spoon.   
  
Andrew sighed, a vague smile hovering about his lips.   
  
"Yes, Warren. I do. I want to talk about you because you matter, okay? Sometimes I talk to Anya about you because she knows about you already. So I figure that's alright."   
  
Warren put down his bowl and spoon. He looked up at Andrew again. He could feel his eyes soft and needy, and he didn't mind.   
  
"Yeah, that's okay," he said. "What do you say about me?"   
  
"I say how I wish you lived in my apartment with me and not out here all by yourself in the cold and damp. I tell her how worried I am about you, and how I'm scared you'll get sick, and how I'm scared you'll get into trouble with whatever it is you're doing out here. I tell her how much I miss you, and I tell her how every time I visit you I wish you'd just come home with me." Andrew stopped and swallowed. "Every time I come here I'm hoping you'll be ready to leave."   
  
Warren held his gaze for a long time before leaning over the table to kiss him. Andrew's mouth was soft and familiar. Warren loved the feel of his skin. Their legs pressed together underneath the table.   
  
"I'm not ready to leave," whispered Warren against Andrew's mouth.   
  
"I know," replied Andrew. "But when you are you tell me and I'll take you straight home, okay?"   
  
"Okay," nodded Warren. He took Andrew's hand in his. "You'll stay tonight, right?"   
  
"You know I hate waking up here, Warren."   
  
"I know, I know. I'm sorry. Stay? Please?" Warren pulled back a little and looked in his eyes. "I'll keep you warm, okay?"   
  
"You know I'll stay," sighed Andrew. Warren smiled.   
  
  
  
The computers had long stopped chugging and thinking by the time they went to bed. It was warm under the blankets, warmer than it seemed it might be.   
  
Warren loved having Andrew back here again. Someday maybe he'd stay. Maybe someday soon he'd be ready to come back and stay. Maybe if Warren cleaned this old shack up a bit.   
  
Andrew slept naked and smiling gently in his arms. Warren stayed awake and watched him in the dim light thrown from the computer screens, and kissed him softly now and again because the smile returned every time.   
  
Yeah. Someday Andrew would stay.   
  



End file.
